1959/60-Rooke returns to mediocrity

So back came Ronnie Rooke, this time purely as manager, as he was almost 48, although he had been player-manager both at Hayward’s Heath and Addlestone (Surrey) since leaving in 1953 and was still registered as a player, ready to turn out occasionally if needed in the reserves. He inherited the whole of Tim Kelly’s squad, but as usual started with some more signings of his own. The only ones who would figure to any extent in the first team were Denis Howe, a tall and classy-looking defender whose main experience had been at Southend, Brian Edwards, an inside-forward who had won a championship medal at Yeovil, and Ron Clark, a Scottish winger from Gillingham. Of these only Howe became a regular, getting his chance when the unfortunate Ron Smith was badly injured at home to Tonbridge in mid-September. 

The 1959/60 squad before the start of the season in August. It’s one of those photographs where, just to make it clear who really matters at the club, the directors have hogged all the best seats, either side of the Championship shield won at Hereford the previous May. 

Back: Ron Smith, Alan Thompson, Ron Clark, Eddie Smith, Roy Greenwood, Billy Goss, Denis Howe, George Fenn, Gordon Hepple, Brian Edwards, Jim Stanbrook, Roy Docherty*.

Middle: Tommy Ruff (trainer), Maurice Robinson, Ron Newman, Terry Murray, Colin Brittan, Bob Craig, Tony Hawksworth, Tony Jones, Len Duquemin, Andy Easton, Jimmy Clugston, Micky Bull, Ken Morgan*, Les Slatter, Joe Campbell (assistant trainer). 

Front: Ronnie Rooke (manager) Reg Cornelius (secretary), and directors T.C.Eckstein, Len Noble, Ted Ashdown (chairman), Harry Cosford (vice-chairman), Cyril Symes, H.L.Miles, F.C.Reynolds and S.H.Thomas.

 * Did not appear in the first team. 

Ronnie Rooke’s second spell as manager got off to a successful start with a 3-1 defeat of Nuneaton, one of the teams who had joined the north-western section the previous year from the Birmingham League, at The Eyrie. Here Len Duquemin is about to be foiled by their goalkeeper, Mike Gibson, making his debut aged 19, who went on to play over 400 Football League matches, mainly for Bristol City. Jimmy Clugston hovers in the distance. 5,635 turned up on a hot day to see the club receive the Championship flag, which can just be seen on the pole to the left of the Ford End Road covered enclosure.  Unfortunately no other league attendance later in the season came anywhere close to that figure and by its end there were serious financial problems. Twenty two years later, in May 1982, Nuneaton were the club’s final opponents before they went into liquidation.

Bedford, of course, competed in the new Premier Division. Into the First (really the Second) Division came the former Kent League clubs and a couple of others. There had been hopes of attracting Peterborough, with their large home gates and away drawing power, but they preferred to stay in the Midland League[1]. The new managership started on a very hot day with a celebratory 3-1 win at home to Nuneaton, when the mayor handed over the League championship flag and a respectable 5,600 attended. Len Duquemin, who scored the third goal and hit a hat-trick at Cheltenham the following Saturday, was the name everyone knew when Bedford were mentioned and he probably added several hundred at least to away attendances. In the first midweek match, however, there was a reality check when Hereford, as League Cup winners of 1958/9, were entertained in the Champions v Cup-Winners’ challenge match and got some revenge for their defeat the previous May with a three-goal win[2] , and when Bath, replete with expensive players such as Charlie “Cannonball” Fleming, won 3-0 on their own ground ten days later it became clear that there would be some much more testing encounters in this division.

Nothing brought this home more clearly than a horrible 1-5 home demolition by Boston on 12 September. Most supporters hadn’t seen their team taken apart like this since the dark days of Fred Stansfield. Soon after this Ron Smith’s injury forced the first big change from the championship side. Comfortable home wins against Wellington and Worcester were both rather hollow, being achieved against ten fit men. Then came an embarrassing 0-2 home defeat in the East Anglian Cup by Romford from the tier below and a single-goal home defeat by Kettering, who were stuck at the bottom of the table. Stuart MacCallum, a recently signed inside-forward who’d scored the winner in a tight game at Chelmsford, was so badly injured in a reserve match that he lost the sight of an eye and was forced to retire. Despite a 5-3 win against the amateurs from Hayes in the FA Cup, things were not going well, and now Rooke made a voluntary change from the championship side by dropping Robinson, switching Bull to the left wing and signing David Gibson from Headington to play on the right.

Signs that all was far from well in Rooke’s second spell as manager appeared in this match against Boston United at The Eyrie on 12 September 1959, when the Eagles crashed 1-5, their heaviest home defeat since the Stansfield era. Here Eddie Smith, a carroty-haired and much travelled inside forward signed by Rooke on trial in August, challenges Boston keeper Len Williams without success. Smith failed to convince and moved on shortly afterwards, although Rooke was impressed by Arthur Hukin, Boston’s lanky striker, and signed him several months later.

Another unimpressive home defeat followed on 24 October 1959, when Kettering, who were eventually relegated, won 1-0 before just over 5,000. Here Micky Bull heads goalwards but Kettering keeper Russell Crossley saved it, watched by his player-manager Jackie Froggatt, the former Portsmouth, Leicester and England defender. 

(Left) Len Duquemin in typical pose, challenging Hayes keeper Joe Lewis in the 5-3 FA Cup win against the amateur side in the fourth qualifying round on 31 October 1959 before 5,777 spectators, but Bedford were dismissed 0-4 in the next round by Gillingham. Andy Easton looks on, in one of his last games for the club- which he completed despite a broken toe, scoring the opening goal. 

(Right) Tony Hawksworth, who was now fully established as first choice goalkeeper, cuts out a cross in the Hayes match. Dennis Howe is the partly obscured Bedford player. Hawksworth had been a “Busby Babe” and won two FA Youth Cup winner’s medals at Old Trafford, but Ray Wood and later Harry Gregg blocked his path to the first team. He was perhaps a little on the short side but was a brave and reliable keeper who served the club well for nearly seven seasons before ending his career playing for Terry Murray at Rushden Town. His weekday job was with the Gas Board and I remember being excited when he once called to read our meter! 

The first match with this new formation ended in a four-goal defeat at home to Gillingham in the first round proper of the FA Cup, and although Bull had what many thought a good goal disallowed when Bedford were only a goal behind, they never looked like winning and the attendance of only 6,728 was a further disappointment. The team were marooned in mid-table because they rarely managed to string together more than one win at a time. Now, having been knocked out of the Southern League Cup at home to Boston, they crashed to a 2-9 defeat at Worcester (six of Worcester’s goals came in the second half) in what turned out to be Andy Easton’s last game for the club. The prolific inside-forward, who’d hit 76 goals in two and half seasons, seems to have fallen out with the manager and was sold to Kettering just before Christmas. Rooke replaced him, for a fee of £250 (it was rare to discover amounts in those days) with Arthur Hukin, a lanky but persistent goalscorer from Boston who was married to a Bedford girl and had been a target for some time. He proved to be virtually the only Rooke signing who was as good as any of the players they replaced, and scored the second of his 108 goals for the club in the first few minutes of his home debut against King’s Lynn on Boxing Day, a battling, solo effort which immediately endeared him to the supporters. 

Gillingham’s Bill Albury, who was to join Bedford for a time in 1967/8, heads past Tony Hawksworth to give the visitors a 17th minute lead in the first round FA Cup tie at The Eyrie on 14 November 1959. Alan Thompson is in the background. 6,728 people saw Bedford lose 0-4 in the end, but the last three goals all came in the final 25 minutes and many thought that Bedford were wrongly denied a goal at 0-1 when Micky Bull’s shot hit the underside of the bar and bounced down. “It was a foot or 18 inches over the line”, visiting captain Harry Hughes is supposed to have told Len Duquemin afterwards, but the referee thought otherwise.

Len Duquemin had gone seven games with only one goal to show for his efforts at the end of this match, and here he hovers as Gillingham keeper John Simpson takes a high ball under challenge. Having hit 31 goals in 30 games in 1958/9, Duquemin scored “only” 43 in 54 in 1959/60, but the real problem was with his colleagues-of the regular forwards only Jimmy Clugston managed over 20 goals, and lack of firepower was to be the theme of Rooke’s second spell in charge. With fewer “soft” opponents in the new Premier division, the defence didn’t help either; having conceded only 1.28 goals a game in 1958/9, they now shipped more than two a match.

 Len Duquemin had recovered his scoring touch by the time of this match against King’s Lynn on Boxing Day, 1959, and here he hits the first goal of a hat-trick in a comfortable 5-2 win. Arthur Hukin, who had marked his home debut ideally by opening the scoring two minutes earlier, is on the far left as Duquemin beats the grounded Lynn keeper Thomas.

[Unfortunately the British Newspaper Library’s copy of the Bedford Record photograph is slightly damaged]

With Andy Easton moving to Kettering after the FA Cup exit, Rooke badly needed an extra forward and his response was to sign Arthur Hukin from Boston United just before Christmas for £250. Hukin was a tall, persevering striker who had married a Bedford girl and already worked in the area as a painter and decorator, so he was an obvious target, and his 108 goals in 146 appearances over the next four seasons made him one of the most successful goalscorers in the old club’s history. (The official blurb supplied by the club for inclusion in away programmes for a time in the late 60s claimed that he was the all-time record scorer with over 200 goals, but this is incorrect-David Sturrock actually scored more (124), though with a much lower strike rate in 274 matches). Many will remember Hukin's courageous battling play, making the most of a rather willowy frame against the uncompromising defenders of the period; though how many more goals he might have scored had he cured an infuriating habit of missing glorious chances can only be guessed at. In one of his earliest home games, against Cheltenham on the first Saturday of 1960, he challenges for a high ball watched by Len Duquemin and Maurice Robinson in the distance, but none of them was in luck as the Eagles went down 0-1 on a damp afternoon, before only just over 3,000 people as gates continued to dwindle. 

There was a half-decent run of results in the New Year, starting with a 3-2 win at Boston in which Hukin scored the winner against his old club, which saw only two defeats in the next eight matches and took the team at one point into fourth place, but that was as far as they could get. Bath were racing away at the top and a 0-2 home defeat by Chelmsford in the middle of this good run further emphasised the gulf between Bedford and the best teams. Duquemin, despite another 34 goals in all competitions this season, was now more tightly marked and the defence proved much more fallible than before; although the forwards hit 97 league goals, second only to Bath’s 116, the defence leaked 85. The final month brought a pleasing 1-0 home win against Bath, who were already assured of the title, but also four league defeats, including an Easter double at the expense of Tim Kelly’s Hastings and a surprise loss at lowly Barry, as well as a second successive Beds Cup defeat by Dunstable, and only 1,800 people, the lowest league attendance since the Bicknell days, saw the final match of the season against Wisbech, where a 3-1 win saw the Eagles into seventh place. 

Hukin, in the foreground, did his best to be credited with this goal, against Yeovil at The Eyrie on 30 January 1960, but Len Duquemin (far right) had beaten keeper Jones (on ground) to a through ball and his shot had enough power to cross the line unaided. This was the first Bedford goal in a 5-3 success, four of the goals coming in the first half.

Hukin’s perseverance was starting to endear him to supporters, and here he is challenging visiting keeper Palmer in the 6-3 defeat of Poole Town in very wet and windy conditions on 20 February 1960. He scored the first goal in an afternoon of defensive errors and periodic heavy downpours. Jimmy Clugston is backing up.

This tangle of arms and legs conceals Hukin who is about to put Bedford ahead against Poole, with Len Duquemin, who hit another hat-trick, obscuring his colleague. Despite his willowy frame Hukin was never one to avoid this kind of melee. He died sadly young from cancer in 1983. Duquemin’s hat-trick was his seventh in a season of eight (one of them a foursome). 

A good Bedford run of five wins in six matches, taking them up to fourth place, came to an end against Chelmsford at The Eyrie on 7 March 1960 with a 0-2 defeat. Here Len Duquemin challenges visiting keeper Reg Newton without success. Although Bath were running away with the championship, both these teams were challenging for a high finish at this stage but at the season’s end they both finished on 45 points, with Chelmsford beating Bedford into sixth place on goal average.

This bizarre view shows Brian Edwards (centre) walking home Bedford’s last goal in a 6-2  thumping of Dartford at The Eyrie on Easter Saturday, 16 April 1960, with Jimmy Clugston on hand just in case, while the Dartford defenders appear to be playing in a different match. Their goalkeeper and captain for the day, Colin Morhen, who had joined them from Bedford the previous year, appears to be giving his colleagues an earful. Edwards was a very experienced midfield player who had won a league championship medal at Yeovil, but rarely had a first team chance in this, his only season, and the hat-trick he hit in this match was his only appearance on the scoresheet.

Down went the average attendance again, to 3,245, which meant that two thousand supporters had been lost, week by week, in the last two seasons. Even in the good run in January and February the attendance only once topped 4,000. As had happened in 1953, Rooke now found that the board were insisting on economies, and H.L.Miles, a director who resigned at the end of the season after unspecified disagreements over policy, told journalists that there would be a 25% cut in the playing budget for 1960/1.

Almost certainly that was why supporters soon learned that three of the championship team, Bull, Clugston and Ron Smith, had been released, and a little later that Duquemin had declined terms; it later transpired that his contract allowed him to leave if his wages were ever reduced. He and Bull both joined Tim Kelly at Hastings, and although in both cases their best days were behind them, supporters probably realised that the club had nobody of equivalent talent to follow.

 This design for the programme cover was adopted from the start of 1959/60 and continued more or less unchanged until 1963. The price went up during the season from 3d to 4d.

 This team group was taken before the end-of-season friendly with Aston Villa on 6 May 1960. 

Back row: Ronnie Rooke (manager), Colin Brittan, Denis Howe, Len Duquemin, Tony Hawksworth, Alan Thompson, Brian Edwards, Jimmy Clugston, Tommy Ruff (trainer).

 Front: Micky Bull, Arthur Hukin, Bob Craig, Terry Murray, Jimmy Welsh, Maurice Robinson. 

Welsh was a “guest” at this stage but was signed during the summer. However, this would be the last time that supporters would see Duquemin, Clugston or Bull, all of whom were released or declined terms as the wage bill was cut by about 25% in the face of falling gates, prompting the resignation of H.L.Miles, a director since 1951, who said “There are a lot of things I don’t agree with”, although he declined to be more specific….The team had finished in mid-table although a reasonable run in the New Year had taken them into fourth place at one stage.

One of the biggest attendances of the post war years, officially given as 10,000 although that is probably an estimate, saw a charity match at The Eyrie on Sunday 24 April 1960 between the Showbiz XI and a team picked by Ronnie Rooke. Here (left to right) are former England skipper Billy Wright, former Arsenal and Wales defender Wally Barnes (by then a BBC commentator), comedian Dave King, Ronnie Rooke, former Luton captain Syd Owen (who had just resigned as their manager), disc jockey Jimmy Henney and singer Ronnie Carroll.  There were a number of such matches around this period,  played in the teeth of quite vocal opposition from the Lord's Day Observance Society, who were reported to have sent an "observer" to this match,  and several times tried to get matches banned by the Courts. It was illegal to charge for admission on a Sunday, but spectators were "invited" to make a donation for a programme in order to get in.

Rooke’s return had not been an entirely happy one, although for those who remembered him as a player he probably retained an aura. His relationship with the board must at this point have been very good, because although when appointed he had only been given a one-year contract, this had been extended to four years as early as January 1960 . But a remarkable picture of his relationships with his players soon after his arrival comes over in a piece by the non-league football expert Tony Williams, who played a few games for the club at this period[3] as an amateur while on National Service at RAF Cardington:

“Under a strange but brilliant Irish manager Tim Kelly, who apparently believed in Leprechauns, Bedford had won the Southern League championship in style. But for some reason the manager had been replaced by famous Arsenal striker Ronnie Rooke. The senior players were not happy with this change, especially as the new boss was bringing in his own players and breaking up the championship winning squad. Rooke had been a good old-style, bustling centre forward, who had scored 68 goals for Arsenal in 88 games, but he had lost his pace. I found myself playing alongside him for a Bedford XI against Letchworth in an East Anglian Cup tie [this was in September 1959, the first of Rooke’s two appearances in the first team that season]. The match went well from an attacking point of view and the manager scored one in a 5-3 victory, with first team striker Jimmy Clugston looking very impressive. I felt pleased with my involvement and was thrilled when Rooke told me to report the next day for a first team Culey Cup tie against King’s Lynn away.

I was to play alongside Clugston, an ex-Portsmouth player and the famous Len Duquemin...

Being a humble new boy and an amateur, I sat near the front of the bus on my own. A huge striker called Andy Easton who wasn’t pleased to have been rested because I was playing, came and sat down beside me and explained they knew it wasn’t my fault I had been picked. Apparently I had been the only one passing the ball to the new manager in the Letchworth game!

We came in at half time one down and the most memorable part of a special day was Rooke’s team talk: ‘Murray you’re f....ing useless’. ‘I’m useless boss?’ ‘Yes you’re f.... ing useless son.’ ‘I’m useless boss, I can’t accept that’. Murray you are f.... useless! The rest of the lads were pleased the manager was concentrating his criticism on midfielder [Terry] Murray, an ex Irish international, but it was an eye-opener for me as nothing constructive was said and ‘the Duke’ whispered that this was one of the manager’s more inspirational half-time talks!”[4]

This is perhaps a misleading snapshot by someone who passed through the club only briefly, but it does cast some light on what was starting to become a period of struggle and disappointment.

To continue the story go to 1960/1-goals galore, at both ends

To see results and teams go to Results and teams, 1950-67


LEAGUE TABLES 1959-1960

 Premier Division

  1. Bath City                                   42  32   3   7  116   50   67

  2. Headington United                 42  23   8  11   78   61   54

  3. Weymouth                               42  22   9  11   93   69   53

  4. Cheltenham Town                  42  21   6  15   82   68   48

  5. Cambridge City                       42  18  11  13   81   72   47

  6. Chelmsford City                      42  19   7  16   90   70   45

  7. Bedford Town                        42  21   3  18   97   85   45

  8. King’s Lynn                               42  17  11  14   89   78   45

  9. Boston United                         42  17  10  15   83   80   44

 10. Wisbech Town                        42  17  10  15   81   84   44

 11. Yeovil Town                            42  17   8  17   81   73   42

 12. Hereford United                    42  15  12  15   70   74   42

 13. Tonbridge                              42  16   8  18   79   73   40

 14. Hastings United                    42  16   8  18   63   77   40

 15. Wellington Town                   42  13  11  18   63   78   37

 16. Dartford                                 42  15   7  20   64   82   37

 17. Gravesend & Northfleet      42  14   8  20   69   84   36

 18. Worcester City                      42  13  10  19   72   89   36

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 19. Nuneaton Borough              42  11  11  20   64   78   33

 20. Barry Town                            42  14   5  23   78  103   33

 21. Poole Town                            42  10   8  24   69   96   28

 22. Kettering Town                     42   9  10  23   60   98   28

 

First Division

  1. Clacton Town                      42  27   5  10  106   69   59

  2. Romford                               42  21  10  11   65   40   52

  3. Folkestone Town                 42  23   5  14   93   71   51

  4. Exeter City Reserves           42  23   3  16   85   62   49

  5. Guildford City                      42  19   9  14   79   56   47

  6. Sittingbourne                      42  20   7  15   66   55   47

  7. Margate                                42  20   6  16   88   77   46

  8. Trowbridge Town                42  18   9  15   90   78   45

  9. Cambridge United              42  18   9  15   71   72   45

 10. Yiewsley                               42  17  10  15   83   69   44

 11. Bexleyheath & Welling      42  16  11  15   85   77   43

 12. Merthyr Tydfil                     42  16  10  16   63   65   42

 13. Ramsgate Athletic              42  16   8  18   83   84   40

 14. Ashford Town                      42  14  12  16   61   70   40

 15. Tunbridge Wells United     42  17   5  20   77   78   39

 16. Hinckley Athletic                 42  14   8  20   62   75   36

 17. Gloucester City                   42  13   9  20   56   84   35

 18. Dover                                   42  14   6  22   59   85   34

 19. Kidderminster Harriers     42  14   6  22   59   97   34

 20. Corby Town                        42  15   3  24   75   91   33

 21. Burton Albion                     42  11  10  21   52   79   32

 22. Rugby Town                        42  10  11  21   67   91   31

   


[1] Where their dominance, helped by the departure of most of their stronger rivals, was such that in the last five seasons before they were admitted to the Football League in 1960 they not only won the title every year but suffered only one home defeat.

[2] Several sources for years claimed that this was the match that made Hereford league champions of 1958/9!

[3] Williams was on Reading’s books at the time and had played a few reserve matches under Tim Kelly the previous season. Mixed elevens were put out for these two local cup-ties played on successive days.

[4] From the Non League Paper, 4 May 2008, reproduced by kind permission of Greenways Media Ltd